Comment by caditinpiscinam
4 hours ago
It makes me sad that my reaction to this piece is so cynical, but I really think that 90% of the "how" in this article is "be an older British lady". If you're missing that vital piece you'll quickly meet many people who "don't have any money", or just remembered they meant to be walking on the other side of the street, or worse. Talking to strangers when people see you as a threat feels really shitty (for everyone involved) and can be dangerous.
I think you're wrong personally. I'm very far away from being "an older British lady" and agree a lot with the article.
Honestly, in the least combative & confrontational possible, your thoughts there are just an excuse to not reach out and engage with the rest of your world. It's a little sad (not you, the situation itself) because if more people had that same thought, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy with no one talking to each other and those people you allude to being an afraid to talk too for whatever reason become the only people out there talking. We're certainly not there yet and I hope we never get there
I agree that it's a sad state of affairs, and a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe I can explain my perspective in a little more detail.
In my typical day at work (teacher), I spend hours talking with dozens of people. A large part of why I chose this work was to escape the isolation that I felt previously when I was doing remote software work. I attend weekly religious services and make an effort to stay for the social hour afterwards. When I go to parties, I don't feel like I have an unusually hard time talking with people. I'm not always as engaged with the world as I'd like, but I don't feel that I'm avoiding it either.
But this article isn't broadly about having conversations with new people: it's about approaching strangers in public settings one-on-one (the article mentions a bus stop, the street, and a mostly empty train carriage), where there's no expectation of social interaction. This is a different situation with its own set of pitfalls. Nobody is going to assume that I'm trying to rob them when I introduce myself at Quaker meeting. No one is going to think I'm a creep for asking a student about their hobbies while I'm at school. We don't see articles about people getting shot for starting up a conversation at a party.
But all of that goes out the window in the settings that the author describes. It's funny, the author mentions feeling like it was "rude and unsafe" to start a chat during the pandemic. I felt like talking to strangers in public got much easier during the pandemic, when people were desperate for any sort of in-person conversation. It's the normal times when this sort of interaction feels rude and unsafe.
Maybe I'm too pessimistic, maybe it would be fine for me to let my guard down a little. I think that loneliness is a huge issue these days and I'm grateful for the efforts people are making (including the author of the article) to address it. But approaching strangers in public in the way the author describes is a special case that is *much* more fraught than other types of social interaction, and is a lot harder for certain people to do successfully. I wish it weren't that way, and maybe it's worth pushing back against, but that doesn't change the current reality. Some people might not feel this way, but they're probably the people for whom it's not true.
>Your thoughts there are just an excuse to not reach out and engage with the rest of your world.
My thoughts are formed from personal experience. You get a few experiences and you get the hint.
So be an older British lady? You get to decide how people see you. Hair, clothes, body language, smile, is 90% of how people decide whether they want to interact with you.
When I dye my hair all kinds of colors, random people talk to me (and the specific colors even dictate who talks). When I dress up in a suit, people treat me more seriously. When I dress like a contractor and drive my truck, regular dudes talk to me at gas stations. And when I dress queer, women (and some dudes) smile at me.
I'm not even outgoing personality-wise, which would help more. Personality's the mental equivalent of physical appearance. Think of it like acting: actors pretend to be a certain way, and if it feels genuine, it makes us love or hate them, intrigued or bored. It's a lot more work than changing clothes, but it works no matter what you wear.
I don't think older British lady is in the cards for me but I get your point. One of my friends has a dog (a very cute little yorkie) who I take on walks fairly often. Let me tell you: I get so many people coming up to me wanting to talk when I'm out walking that dog. It's like I'm suddenly transported to a different universe where people are 100x more sociable.
It makes sense: people love dogs. It gives us something in common and is a starting point for conversation. And people with cute dogs seem much less threatening.
But I also kind of resent it. I wish people would want to talk to me when I'm just me.
Don’t feel bad please. There’s a flip side to all these sociable people which you are sensing. It’s the fallacy of “winning friends and influencing people”. Suppose you are sociable and use the tricks to get to know people (take an interest in their interest, ask for favors, etc) the reality is it will almost never be reciprocated. You get a bunch of people to like you but they will never know you because they’re pitiful and shallow. After a while you will resent them and just skip it all.
Yeah. That's something I constantly worry about. If I'm in a random scene, most people don't want a large black man approaching them. The calculus completely changes.
That's why I gotta pick my venues. But those venues are shrinking and growing farther apart.